Why can't we hear EVP?

Electronic Voice Phenomina is always fascinating. The simple aspect of hearing the voice of someone on a recording that was not in the area being
recorded in is just mind blowing, to me. First time I ever heard of this was on that Ghost Hunters show (does that show still run, by the way?), and
I had to take a step back and readdress some of my thoughts on the reality of ghosts.

Well, my question is: Shouldn't we be able to hear these voices with the naked ear? A little hand-held recording device is a rather simple machine,
is it not? It records sounds (sound waves). Sounds can not exist without sound waves, right? Machines don't have ESP, and if all this device is
doing is picking up sound waves in the air, shouldn't something as complex as the human ear and brain be able to pick up on it?

How come we don't hear these voices? My take is that maybe our minds are conditioned by others to think that these sounds don't exist, so then our
minds block out the sounds and the ability to pick up on them becomes atrophied. Or maybe the voices are carried on a sort of radio frequency? Then
again, I didn't think that hand-held recorders picked up on radio waves.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on this? Does anyone know why we don't hear the EVP with our own ears?

Yeah, I've thought about this too. My thoughts are that maybe we learned to tune things out when we were young, or maybe we just have a shell around
our heads to keep out things we aren't ready to hear. After all, there are some people who can hear those things.
I was intending to do some research into the digital recorders to see what exactly the do that's so different from tape recorders. Because it's only
supposed to work with digital recorders, not tapes, from what I've heard. I also hope there's someone here with some more information.

Hand held recorders do not pick up radio frequencies. All a sound wave is, is merely the compression of air molecules. A radio frequency is
different.. it is pulses of electromagnetic energy. Here is a simple ASCII drawing

Sound origination. Air Molecules Microphone

X . . . . ... . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . ... (---

The air compresses, and has to push the air infront if it to make room. The microphone is basically a small sensative speaker. The air pushes on this
microphone, and the microphone picks up on these small vibrations in the air. There is a magnet and a coil of wire in the microphone. As the
microphone vibrates, it vibrates the coil at the same speed, which creates a current in the coil. The electronics record the sound based on the
electrical current in the coil. To play it back, you reproduce the same electrical current pattern on a speaker. The current is forced through the
coil creating a small electromagnet. The two "magnets" attract and repel eachother. This forces the air infront of the speaker to vibrate.. compress
and expand. This is how a sound can be recorded and reproduced.

In theory, you should be able to hear anything that you can hear, played back on the media you recorded on.

One possible explanation is that the ghosts or whatever you have simply alter the static noise to sound somewhat like real voices, since they can not
directly communicate to us through voice. They alter the static to sound like voices. That is one possible explanation. I hope this bit of information
was helpful to you in how a recorder can record and reproduce any sounds it picks up.

Is it at all possible that differing combinations of opposing/supplementary sound frequencies can give our aural translators (in the brain) the effect
of hearing something that doesn't sound like it is audible, yet is?
This might explain why it wouldn't be able to be picked up in a machine, but could be, in the minds of specific people who's brains have been
trained to hea... uhh, hey that describes subliminal messages pretty well! hahahah

Originally posted by ADHDsux4me
If it weren't for the common knowledge that this is science, we might as well call it magic becuase we don't (at least the majority of us) don't
know how electronics work.

Word, I don't know AC from DC.

from Futurama
Fry: How could they even know about a show from 1000 years ago?
Prof: Well, Omicron Persei 8 is about 1000 light years away, so the electro-magnetic waves would just recently have gotten there, you see...
Fry: Magic, Got it.

Question #3
Do you ever really "Hear" the voices with your own ears without the use of a recorder?

Answer #3
Well....its happened...but not often.
Its called Clairaudience and I believe everyone has at least a little bit
of this ability. Ninty nine percent of the time I hear absolutly nothing without
the use of the recorder.
Actually....the times I "have" heard voices with my own ears where there shouldn't have
been any were times when I was NOT thinking of spirits or EVP research.

Let me ask you this......
Have you ever thought that you heard faint voices while there was some kind of other "white noise" going on around you?
What I mean is.....many people, myself included, have thought that they heard faint voices at such times
as when the shower was running.....or mixed in with the whine of an electric fan.
Turn off the fan....or the water....and there is only silence.
Resume the activity and you can swear that you hear the voices again!
The theory is that the available white noise is somehow providing a "carrier" for the spirit voices into our world.
Unfortunatly....its just that....a theory, and as of yet.....unproveable.

A microphone works the same as the humans ear. The vibrations in the air vibrate the inner ear, which creates electrical impulses that are sent to the
brain. The brain then decodes these impulses and tells us what we ust heard.

Is it at all possible that differing combinations of opposing/supplementary sound frequencies can give our aural translators (in the brain) the effect
of hearing something that doesn't sound like it is audible, yet is?

To answer that question in short form, no... the two wave forms would cancel eachother out, and you wouldnt hear anything. Two waveforms exactly
opposite will create nothing. there will be nothing to hear.

If you want the lengthy explanation on why they cancel eachother out then continue reading

if i am understanding you correctly, then no.. that is not possible. When the air is compressed, think of it as a positive number.. i.e. there are
more molecules in the given space. and when the air is expanded it is a negative number, i.e. there are less molecules than normal. If the two waves
are 180 degrees out of phase then the result you would hear is nothing. you must take the average of the two waveforms, and that will give you the
equivilant waveform. If the waveforms are exactly in phase then the resultant wave form would be still audible. remember, the average of +10 and -10
is nothing. the average of -10 and -10 is -10. still there. same goes for positive numbers. If it helps to picture waves in the ocean, then here is an
example:

The crest of a wave is the tall part, and the trough is the low part. Two crests of equal height are headed straight for eachother. When they collide,
they are twice as tall, and when the troughs collide, it will be twice as deep in a perfect world. (of course there are losses in energy which will
equal a loss in height).. If a crest that was 10 feet tall collided with a trough that was 10 feet deep, then the resultant would be a water level of
zero.

Same works for different sized waves. If a 10 foot crest and a 2 foot crest collide, then the resultant is 12 feet. If a 10 foot tall crest collides
with a 2 foot short trough then the resultant would be a 4 foot tall crest (because remember that a trough would actually be -2 feet, or 2 feet below
average sea level)

That is the best i can explain this without getting too technical. I am trying to keep it as simple as possible without overwhelming people with
technical information and jargon. If there are any similar questions, then feel free to ask.

Thanks for the replies, guys... That's a lot of information to soak in; all of it very intriquing.

I wonder if one would be able to hear these voices with proper meditation... Instead of going for the 'hearing it with your ear' approach, maybe go
for the psychic approach? Clairvoyance, clairaudience? What's it called?

also a copy from another website I posted on once in regards to the difference between EVP and PVP:

The reason for the difference is this. I started along the path of EVP's because I thought it was a bunch of baloney. Now that I have spent literally
over 100 hours of listening to recordings, I have come to a conclusion. The EVP’s that I can record in my home are different from the ones I have
recorded when at locations with known paranormal activity.

PVP, or Paranormal Voice Phenomena, are usually louder and more clearer than the ones collected by other means. They are also usually in response to
human voice or questions.

EVP, Electronic Voice Phenomena, are recorded when there is no human voice for a catalyst. Its created on its own without any outside influence.

At first I was sure that you wouldn’t get any voice like anomalies because I thought that people were needed for the phenomena to occur. But I have
found that is not true.

Voice like anomalies, EVP’s, can be recorded when there is no outside influence, but they are not of the same quality of the ones that recorded when
people are present. They are not as loud, and they are more difficult to understand. Many EVP’s may be auditory hallucination due to the human brain
trying to make a pattern out of random white noise, but not all can be attributed to that.

and another on EVP and AHP:

coining a new term here

Audio Halucination Phenomena

I have listened to to the best,,, and I have to conclude.... if you do not name a evp file to influence the listener,,, let 10 people listen and they
will tell you they hear 10 different things.

I submit this test for the willing...... take the evp from the movie white noise,,, the one attributed to the fictional Ruth Baxter

I will see you no more

or I was seeing no war ( original interpetation )

let 10 people listen to that sound, 10 random strangers, give them no background,,, just listen to this and tell me what you hear if anything,,,, you
will most likely get 7 different versions out of 10 of the same sound. But if you tell them "hey I think this is a voice, can you make it out?" You
have already trained them to "hear a voice".

In the field of paranormal research, I submit that AHP is common,

1. Due to the very nature of the bussiness, any sound file is expected to contain something not ordinary, there for queueing the listener to
concentrate on any thing that seems slightly strange.

2. Any one not connected to paranormal research most likely will not hear the same things you hear.

3. Personality will directly affect a persons ability to interpet sounds of the recording,,, I have personally recorded what to me seemed to be
unintelligible voices, but others heard nothing.

4. see #1. Of this I am guilty as are all paranormal researchers, no matter how objective you want to be, you will never have 10 out of 10 people (
objectively ) agree that anything you record says the same thing.

5. Bottom line... I can record and hear voices that no one else can hear... Am I trained to hear them ? Maybe,,, I ask questions and believe (now)
that I will and do get answers.

anybody interested in EVPs can U2U me.... especially anyone in the Northern Va area who might want to try to collect some sometime

Originally posted by CloudlessKnight
Electronic Voice Phenomina is always fascinating. The simple aspect of hearing the voice of someone on a recording that was not in the area being
recorded in is just mind blowing, to me. First time I ever heard of this was on that Ghost Hunters show (does that show still run, by the way?), and
I had to take a step back and readdress some of my thoughts on the reality of ghosts.

Well, my question is: Shouldn't we be able to hear these voices with the naked ear? A little hand-held recording device is a rather simple machine,
is it not? It records sounds (sound waves). Sounds can not exist without sound waves, right? Machines don't have ESP, and if all this device is
doing is picking up sound waves in the air, shouldn't something as complex as the human ear and brain be able to pick up on it?

How come we don't hear these voices? My take is that maybe our minds are conditioned by others to think that these sounds don't exist, so then our
minds block out the sounds and the ability to pick up on them becomes atrophied. Or maybe the voices are carried on a sort of radio frequency? Then
again, I didn't think that hand-held recorders picked up on radio waves.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on this? Does anyone know why we don't hear the EVP with our own ears?

[edit on 1-5-2005 by CloudlessKnight]

Because ghosts operate on a lower frequency then we do.
To get an EVP you need radio noise in order to give the spirit a voice. So knowing that, its pretty obvious why we can't hear spirits.

Although, some people do have the inate ability to hear these frequencies.
I guess some people are in tune with the spirit world, and others are not.

I`v read up some on EVPs and what frequencies they occur on. Normal human speech is around 500Hz-4000Hz, most EVPs occur down at 10-100Hz. In nature
there are animals that use sounds we can`t hear for example elephants make deep rumbles way under what we can hear that can travel miles, bats use
ultrasound and creates sound images aswell as dolphins, dolphins can also use sound as a weapon to stun fish - we can`t hear none of them.

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